No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (25 page)

After thanking the paramedic for her time, Warren joined Sutton at the coffee machine. Wearily saluting him with the plastic cup, he broke the silence.

“What do you think, Tony?”

Sutton looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, guv. On the one hand it sounds as if it was definitely attempted murder, the call-centre worker was right to flag it. On the other hand, it doesn’t really fit the pattern. Firstly, the previous two victims were chosen as they walked home from work or the gym — if we assume that she was a sex worker, then his choice of target has changed. Second, the last two girls were dumped somewhere remote — presumably to buy him some time before we started investigating. Even if she hadn’t been found by chance tonight, it sounds as if whoever put the bins out from the café the next day would have had a nasty surprise.”

Warren nodded his agreement. “On top of that the previous two attacks have been meticulously planned. He took great lengths to avoid any contamination of the scene. And he subdued his victim with solvent beforehand. Without wanting to second-guess Forensics, I’m going to suggest that he went in swinging this time with little care — why?”

Sutton shrugged. “Like you said, let’s not second-guess Forensics.” His expression darkened more. “If things are as bad as that paramedic suggested, we may even get results from an autopsy.”

* * *

It was six a.m. before Sutton and Warren arrived back at Middlesbury. At five a.m., the lead trauma surgeon, Mr Hira-Singh, had met the officers to discuss the young woman’s prognosis.

“It’s a miracle she survived. Remarkably I think we can probably thank her poor health overall and the freezing conditions, although I don’t think she would have lasted much longer if she hadn’t been found when she was.”

Prompted by their surprised looks, he explained, “The human body is a remarkable thing and the human brain even more so. In recent years, we’ve found that much of the damage caused by traumatic brain injury or strokes actually occurs in the days or weeks after the initial insult. Cells surrounding the original injury site can be damaged or destroyed as a side effect of the body trying to repair the original injury or at least limit its effects. We’re only just starting to understand what is actually happening at a cellular level, but in recent years it’s been found that inducing a state of controlled hypothermia in patients can slow down cellular metabolism enough to buy us time to work on repairing the damage without the body’s own mechanisms getting in the way.” He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

Close up the man had a neatly trimmed beard and still wore an elastic cap over his head; perhaps he would replace it with a full turban at the end of his shift.

“Well, the young woman in there — and she is young, no more than twenty, I’d say — was probably halfway to hypothermia before her attack even started. I didn’t get much of a chance to perform an examination, obviously, and it’s outside my expertise even if I did, but from what I saw she was very underweight for her height. If it wasn’t for the obvious signs of drug abuse I’d say she was anorexic. She may still be. Either way, she has no body fat to speak of and she was dressed in skimpy clothes in a temperature of minus five at least. Her metabolism was probably so low, the very worst effects of the trauma may have been avoided. One thing’s for certain — she won’t have put up much of a fight.” For the first time a note of anger crept into the man’s voice. It was clear that after hours of battling to save this young stranger’s life, he’d grown attached to her.

“What’s her prognosis, doctor?” asked Warren quietly.

He sighed. “She’ll almost certainly live. The next forty-eight hours are critical and she’ll be in ICU for at least a week, but barring any unforeseen complications she should survive.” He paused. “But what she’ll be like when she comes around — if she comes around — is anybody’s guess. We’ll be doing regular scans to monitor any swelling or bleeding, but it’ll be a few days until we can tell what level of permanent brain damage she’s sustained. She’ll need more surgery in the coming weeks to repair her skull. It’s been fractured like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Warren shuddered, the phrase bringing back memories of his earlier nightmare.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Do you think she was raped?”

The surgeon shrugged. “I imagine that they’ll do a proper rape kit when they get her up on the ward, but her knickers and stockings were intact. As was her top, for that matter, but I can’t be any more precise than that.”

With that, the surgeon stood up and shook hands with the two police officers. Both men could hear the sincerity in his voice as he wished them luck in finding her attacker.

* * *

Arriving back at the station, Jones and Sutton drank more coffee and planned out how to approach this latest turn of events. With neither man sure if the attack was linked to the killings, Warren decided to make that their priority.

At seven a.m., the two men made their way to the scene of the attack. The sun was just starting to reappear and the cold, damp air held a light, gloomy fog that the poorly maintained streetlights did little to dispel. The area was well chosen. Warren could see how it would be relatively easy to stage an attack on a vulnerable young woman, especially late at night. The area was run-down and in desperate need of regeneration. Few people on legitimate business would be out and about after dark, making it the perfect area for sex workers and their clients to conduct their seedy transactions.

Once upon a time a main thoroughfare, Truman Street sported two terraced-rows of mixed-usage buildings. Most had a large glass store front, with a wide door for customer access on one side and another, more modest, wooden door on the other, leading to the upstairs floor of the building, which was either a flat or the back office for the business downstairs.

Today, at least half of the store fronts were boarded up, with ‘For Sale’ signs in the windows or ‘To Let’ signs advertising the upstairs flat. What businesses remained had graffiti-covered steel shutters padlocked to the concrete window sill. Often it was unclear if they were closed for the night or closed for good. Rain-damaged flyers and posters advertised gigs from three years ago. It’s bad news when even the fly-posters stop visiting, thought Warren.

The alleyway where the attack occurred was marked off with blue and white crime-scene tape. A white tent protected the scene from the elements and the public.

As news of their arrival spread the familiar white-suited form of Andy Harrison emerged from behind the tent.

“Morning, DCI Jones, Tony.” He nodded, not offering a hand. “We must stop meeting like this.” As usual the Yorkshireman’s sense of humour was inappropriate, but neither man commented. When you saw what he saw on a daily basis, you could be forgiven if your jokes were a little off-colour.

“Morning, Andy. What have you got for us?”

“Pretty straightforward, I’d say.” He pulled back the awning of the tent, so the two detectives could see inside. “The alleyway is pretty narrow and dingy, not easily visible from the road, unless you are standing directly opposite and there’s no reason to at that time of night.”

Both men turned and saw that he was right. Directly opposite the entrance to the alley was a shuttered shop front. The peeling sign above the covered window read ‘Middlesbury Electronics Components’ in faded yellow letters with a local number printed above it. The flat above had uncurtained windows with a ‘To Let’ sign. Even assuming the shop was still in business, it wouldn’t be open at midnight and it didn’t look as though the flat above was occupied. The greasy spoon café on the left of the alleyway was open eight to five and the florist’s on the right-hand-side appeared to have been closed for some time judging by the state of the ‘For Sale’ sign in the window. Later in the morning, a team would go door-knocking in an appeal for witnesses, but Warren felt it unlikely that they’d find much.

“The paramedics found the young woman behind those bins there.” He gestured at the battered-looking large metal containers.

Warren was a little surprised to see them; he remembered them from his schooldays — huge things on wheels, about five feet tall, that needed to be lifted by a special attachment on the back of the lorry. He guessed that colour-coded, plastic recycle bins hadn’t yet made it to this part of town. He wondered how many times a week these bins were emptied. According to the large, colour-coded calendar on the back of his kitchen door, he and Susan put out their four different bins up to twice a week, depending on the colour of their lid and their contents. Unless it was a bank holiday — then, of course, all bets were off.

Regardless, these bins would do a very good job of hiding the woman’s body from passers-by.

“We’ve found a large pool of blood here, mixed in with blonde hair and bits of flesh. We’ve also found small splinters of wood, presumably from the weapon—” he waved his hand in a large arc “—and blood-spatter traces all over the bins, the walls and the floor. That may give us some ideas about the attacker. We’re looking for traces leading to or from the alleyway.” He pointed down the far end. “As you can see, the alleyway is open both ends. The far end leads onto a back access road. If we can find which way he entered or left that might narrow down the search for witnesses.”

Warren nodded his approval. “Good thinking. Any idea about the weapon?”

Harrison smiled. “I can do better than that.” He turned to one of his assistants. “Sam, could you show the detectives what you found in the bin?”

Another paper-suited form turned around. Truth be told, Warren had no idea until she spoke whether ‘Sam’ was male or female. It made him feel slightly uncomfortable. Why? Surely it didn’t matter what Sam’s sex was, just as it didn’t matter what ethnicity or sexual orientation she was. Nevertheless, Warren had always found the shapeless, unisex suits to be a little discomforting.

Pulling out a clear evidence bag about the size of a carrier bag — it reminded Warren of the duty-free bags you now had to put your liquids in at the airport — the forensic technician showed him a length of wooden two by two about eighteen inches long. The last six inches of one end were chipped and frayed and stained with blood. A few hairs had caught amongst the splinters.

“There’s a pile of this in the back of one of the nearby gardens — we’ll have to check and see if it matches, but it’s clearly been sitting outside exposed to the elements for some time.” Warren took her word for it; it wasn’t clear at all to his eyes. “Which unfortunately means that unless we can get prints or other trace evidence off the wood, it’s probably not going to lead us to the killer.”

“Damn it. Good find though — anything else? The paramedics didn’t find her handbag and her pockets were empty. Sex workers usually carry all sorts with them.”

Sam shook her head. “Nothing so far, but we haven’t started a fingertip search yet. I just happened to spot the wood by accident, poking out of the bin.”

“Do me a favour, then, could you? Keep an eye out for it. If you find it, it could give us some clues to her identity and maybe even the motive. Call me as soon as it turns up.”

With nothing else to see, Jones and Sutton decided to leave the crime scene team to it and return to the station. On the way there, Warren picked Sutton’s brains.

“On the face of it, it looks unrelated to the murders. The MO doesn’t match and her handbag is missing. I would say either a disgruntled client or a mugging.”

Warren nodded slowly. “I can see your point of view, Tony, but when does a mugger bash the victim’s brains out like that? Or a pissed-off client, for that matter?”

The two men rode in silence for a few minutes.

“You know, I don’t know what worries me more,” started Warren. “That our murderer has changed his tactics, or that there are two different killers in Middlesbury.”

Chapter 32

By the time morning briefing ended at nine a.m., Warren was starting to flag. A team of officers were door-knocking around Truman Street to see if they could find any witnesses, but he didn’t have much hope. More promisingly he was due to meet one of the liaison officers who worked with the sex-worker support team. Assuming last night’s victim was local, Warren was hopeful that they could identify her and perhaps shed some light on what had occurred. For that, they would probably need to send a team of specially trained officers out after dark to canvass other sex workers in the area. He knew from briefings that the support workers laboured hard to gain the trust of the girls and that they cooperated to keep them safe. Maybe a witness had seen somebody acting strangely in the area? Nevertheless, Warren felt a wave of hopelessness washing over him.

Two murders and an attempted murder and his team seemed to be hitting dead ends at every turn. And everyone was looking at him for inspiration. For the first time since taking his new post in the summer, Warren found himself wishing he could turn back the clock, to the days when he was just one of a team of detective inspectors working in the comfort of the huge West Midlands Police Service; free to get on with his job, safely insulated from the politics and the pressures by a layer of DCIs and Detective Superintendents above him.

Snap out of it, he commanded himself, feeling revulsion at his self-pity. You wanted this promotion and now, after a few late nights, you want to give up? He stood up abruptly, hoping the sudden movement would translate itself into a surge of renewed energy. Although he knew he probably shouldn’t, he made his way out to the communal coffee urn. This was, what, his fifth — sixth? — cup of coffee this morning? His stomach growled as he filled his mug. His fifty-pence piece chinked against the handful of others in the honesty jar — all of them his. He wondered briefly how long he would keep up his one-man crusade to get his colleagues to pay for their coffee. The first sip of the coffee scalded his mouth and left an acid feeling in his stomach. Was he developing an ulcer?

Susan had once explained that stomach ulcers were normally caused by a bacterium that ate away at the protective lining of the stomach and that too much stress, or coffee or spicy foods couldn’t cause them. She’d even shown him some colourful posters drawn by her year eight pupils, gleefully recounting how some Australian researchers had proven this theory and won a Nobel prize by drinking a beaker of the bacteria and making themselves sick with ulcers. Nevertheless, Warren did worry that his irregular and questionable diet and prodigious coffee intake might be rotting him from the inside out.